Carrying hope instead of drugs
The rehabilitation of drug smugglers can be a monumental task, especially when the offenders are biting, kicking beasts.
But volunteers are undeterred.
They take on the mares, stallions and thoroughbreds that once carried multimillion-dollar loads of illicit drugs through rugged canyons on down to parched desert.
These are horses that were at the mercy of drug runners - enslaved and worked nearly to death before being captured and taken to animal rescue organizations.
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About 75 horses each year are found abandoned in Southern Arizona and then turned over to the state Department of Agriculture, Acevedo said.
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